The 59th Annual Musical America awards · Sharon Isbin is the ˛rst guitarist to be named Musical...

The 59th AnnualMusicalAmericaawards

4 December 2019

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4 December 2019 d Musical America Annual Awards 4 December 2019 d Musical America Annual Awards

Order of Ceremony

Welcome Annie Bergen, Midday Host WQXR

Sedgwick Clark, Features Editor

Composer of the YearJoan Tower

Instrumentalist of the YearSharon Isbin

Vocalist of the YearPeter Mattei

Ensemble of the YearDanish String Quartet

Festival of the YearSalzburg Festival

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Musical America thanks our sponsors for their generosity and support.


In the wake of the First World War, the Salzburg Festival was launched in 1920 as “a project for freedom,” in the words of Festival President Helga Rabl-Stadler, to combat “crises—the crisis of meaning and loss of values, the crisis of identity of the individual human being as well as entire nations.”

The Festival today—200 opera, concert, and drama perfor-mances jam-packed into six weeks and 16 venues, attracting tens of thousands of guests from 80 countries, half of them outside of Europe—is barely recognizable from its humble beginnings with a performance of Jedermann (Everyman) on the steps of the Salzburg Cathedral. By way of example, one day at last year’s festival started at 11 a.m., when Andrew Manze conducted the Mozarteum Orchestra Salzburg; at noon, the “Drama Investigations” series o�ered a lecture by lawyer/author Literary Saloon blogger Michael Orthofer; the afternoon featured a children’s opera workshop, followed by the opera itself (Der Gesang der Zauberinsel, a Festival com-mission); at 4 p.m., the curtain rose on Ödön von Horváth’s play Youth Without God at the Salzburg State Theater, fol-lowed at 7:30 by George Enescu’s Oedipe, with Ingo Metzmacher conducting the Vienna Philharmonic. Also at 7:30, Roger Norrington was conducting the Camerata Sal-zburg at the Mozarteum. At 9 p.m., Hofmannsthal’s Jeder-mann was reprised from nearly a century ago. In Salzburg, all three of the principal sectors—opera, drama, concerts—are �ourishing. It is hard to imagine that, as its centennial approaches, the Festival has ever been healthier.

Salzburg FestivalFestival of the Year

Photo: © Franz Neumayr.


Supporting Sponsor

Athens Philharmonic

Wishes to congratulate and salute allthe Musical America Award Winners!

A New Musical Tradition

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Joan TowerComposer of the Year

Long before women composers grabbed the public by the lapels, Composer of the Year Joan Tower was busy working in the trenches, a pioneer in an oft-neglected field. In 1990, she became the first woman to receive the prestigious Grawemeyer Award, for Silver Ladders, and earlier this year the League of American Orchestras honored her with its Gold Baton award. Also a teacher and a pianist, she founded the Da Capo Chamber Players in 1969, among the very first contemporary-music ensembles to gain any traction. She has been composer-in-residence with major ensembles, boasting a vast and varied list of commissions. One of them, Made in America, was performed in the early 2000s by more than 65 orchestras in all 50 states. Her six Fanfares for the Uncommon Woman have been performed worldwide by over 500 ensembles.

Photo: © Bernie Mindich.


Sharon IsbinInstrumentalist of the Year

Photo: © Darnell Renee.

Sharon Isbin is the �rst guitarist to be named Musical America’s Instrumentalist of the Year. Celebrating her vir-tuosity as a musician, the designation also recognizes her wide range of commissions for the instrument, adding to the repertoire works by John Corigliano, Lukas Foss, Tan Dun, Joan Tower, Aaron Jay Kernis, and the late Christopher Rouse, among others. She is also the �rst guitarist to record as a soloist with the New York Philharmonic, and her breadth of stylistic range is re�ected in some of her performing and recording collaborators—Antonio Carlos Jobim, jazz guitar-ist Larry Coryell, folk singer Joan Baez, country �ddler Mark O’Connor, and rock guitarists Steve Vai and Steve Morse. She has also sought to bring her instrument to a wider public, writes Allan Kozinn in his tribute article, “updating the ways classical guitarists present themselves and their instrument.”


Peter MatteiVocalist of the Year

Photo: © Marty Sohl/Met Opera.

Vocalist of the Year Peter Mattei made his Metropolitan Opera debut in 2002 singing the Count in Mozart’s The Mar-riage of Figaro. A consistently solid and assured presence on stage, he is as adept at bringing out the comic side of that ine�ectual lord of the manor as he is the arrogant side of Don Giovanni, the role that �rst brought him to international prominence. Other notable roles have included Amfortas in Parsifal, and his sexy if slightly dangerous characterization of Figaro in Rossini’s The Barber of Seville. His tenth Met Opera role, Berg’s Wozzeck, opens two days after Christmas. It is certain to showcase the Swedish baritone’s ability to �nd beauty while delving into the dark side. “The more you work with this music, the more beauty you �nd in it,” he tells Heidi Waleson in her tribute piece.

Supporting Sponsor


Danish String QuartetEnsemble of the Year

Photo: © Caroline Bittencourt.

Ensemble of the Year, the Danish String Quartet—Frederik Øland (violin); Rune Tonsgaard Sørensen (violin); Asbjørn Nørgaard (viola); Fredrik Schøyen Sjölin (cello)—made its debut in 2002 and by 2006 had been named Artist-in-Res-idence by Danish Radio. Its �rst recordings, of the Nielsen string quartets, garnered high praise from critics. Having demonstrated its special a�nity for Scandinavian compos-ers early on (and winning the Carl Nielsen Prize in 2011), the group has since broadened its repertoire and reputation. This season the DSQ embarks upon its greatest challenge to date, performing the complete Beethoven cycle in honor of the composer’s 250th year. In a project for the ECM label, these young artists are recording �ve “Prism” CDs—each containing a late Beethoven quartet, an arrangement of a Bach fugue, and a 20th-century work.

Supporting Sponsor

Celebrating Inspiring Performance

Supporting performing arts and artistic excellence is a top priority for Meyer Sound. We’re honored to be a part of the 59th Musical America Annual Awards and salute the Musical America team and all of the outstanding 2020 winners.

Photo: ToddToddT Rosenberg

4 December 2019 d Musical America Annual Awards

Acknowledgements

Musical America wishes to thank the following organizations for

their support of this event.

•Joan Tower: String Quartets Nos. 3-5• Joan Tower: Violin Concerto • Joan Tower: Made in America

Salome, Salzburg Festival 2018

Prism II

Souvenirs of Spain & Italy

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